Develop Reference

correct way to animate objects in wpf and c#

I want to create a animation with WPF, but I dont know the right way. The animation should be async. The animation should be a rectangle that grows (height)
. Is a canvas object for something like that a good choose?
Maybe someone of you can give me a helpfull link. I don't want any code snippets.

Links :
Animation Overview : MSDN
Animation How-To : MSDN
In your case, problem is "Height grows downward or both up/down (50%) each". To make Rectangle grow only upwards poses few small challenges.
How to animate an attached property like Canvas.Top. ( Approach 1)
How to animate a Scale Transform. ( Approach 2 )
Animating Attached-Property
Animating Transforms
I am posting a working code using Canvas (Approach 1).
<Canvas Margin="482,125,206,10" Background="MediumSeaGreen">
<Rectangle x:Name="Rect" Fill="#FF030315" Height="100" Stroke="Black" Width="42" Canvas.Top="222">
<Rectangle.Triggers>
<EventTrigger RoutedEvent="MouseEnter">
<EventTrigger.Actions>
<BeginStoryboard x:Name="Sb">
<Storyboard>
<DoubleAnimation Storyboard.TargetProperty="(Canvas.Top)" Storyboard.TargetName="Rect" By="-100" Duration="0:0:5"/>
<DoubleAnimation Storyboard.TargetProperty="Height" Storyboard.TargetName="Rect" By="100" Duration="0:0:5"/>
</Storyboard>
</BeginStoryboard>
</EventTrigger.Actions>
</EventTrigger>
<EventTrigger RoutedEvent="MouseLeave">
<EventTrigger.Actions>
<PauseStoryboard BeginStoryboardName="Sb" />
</EventTrigger.Actions>
</EventTrigger>
</Rectangle.Triggers>
</Rectangle>
</Canvas>

Need help applying animation in transform group in wpf

I have a piece of xaml that applies a scale transform and a rotatetransform.
<Image.RenderTransform>
<TransformGroup>
<RotateTransform Angle="0" x:Name="RotateTransform"/>
<TranslateTransform X="0" Y="0"/>
<ScaleTransform ScaleX="2" ScaleY="2"/>
</TransformGroup>
</Image.RenderTransform>
I also have a storyboard that needs to accesss RotateTransform like so:
<Storyboard x:Key="Storyboard"
Storyboard.TargetProperty="(RenderTransform).(RotateTransform.Angle)"
Storyboard.TargetName="RotateTransform">
<DoubleAnimation From="0" To="360" RepeatBehavior="Forever" SpeedRatio="0.25" />
</Storyboard>
However I can not get the image to rotate, but it does scale up. Does anyone have suggestions to fix the problem?
Edit: I did figure out that i can use
<Storyboard x:Key="Storyboard"
Storyboard.TargetProperty="(Image.RenderTransform).Children[0].Angle"
Storyboard.TargetName="ContentImage">
<DoubleAnimation From="0" To="360" RepeatBehavior="Forever" SpeedRatio="0.25" />
</Storyboard>
And call the animation by the array position, but why is it not possible to actually call the transform property's angle property automatically by x:Name?

A RotateTransform does not have RenderTransform property, so you can't animate RenderTransform.Angle.
The animation would have to target the Angle property directly. Moreover, you would usually apply the TargetName and TargetProperty properties to the DoubleAnimation, not to the Storyboard. You would also set the Duration of the animation instead of applying a SpeedRatio for the default duration of one second.
<Storyboard>
<DoubleAnimation
Storyboard.TargetName="RotateTransform"
Storyboard.TargetProperty="Angle"
From="0" To="360" RepeatBehavior="Forever" Duration="0:0:4"/>
</Storyboard>

The RenderTransform and RotateTransform are associated properties and need parenthesis around them. This is the correct syntax.
<Storyboard x:Key="Storyboard"
TargetProperty="(RenderTransform).Children[0].(RotateTransform.Angle)"
TargetName="ContentImage">
<DoubleAnimation From="0" To="360" RepeatBehavior="Forever" SpeedRatio="0.25" />
</Storyboard>
as you pointed out in your edit you could also write this as
<Storyboard x:Key="Storyboard"
TargetProperty="(RenderTransform).Children[0].Angle"
TargetName="ContentImage">
<DoubleAnimation From="0" To="360" RepeatBehavior="Forever" SpeedRatio="0.25" />
</Storyboard>

Fading animation in Visual Studio Blend

I wish to change the actual content of my textblock. I know I can change it by using textblock.text = "new text" when an event is triggered. However, is there a way to make it change gradually, i.e. with a fade animation? I tried using Visual Studio Blend, and managed to make objects scale, and rotate, but I have not figured out how to make content of an element change/ apply animation when content of the element changes.

Here is a small example, which consists of a TextBox and a TextBlock. Each time you change the value in the TextBox, the content of the TextBlock fades out and in.
<StackPanel>
<TextBox x:Name="txtSampleText" Margin="10" Text="This is a Sample Text"></TextBox>
<TextBlock x:Name="tbMessage" Text="{Binding ElementName=txtSampleText, Path=Text, NotifyOnTargetUpdated=True}" Margin="10">
<TextBlock.Triggers>
<EventTrigger RoutedEvent="Binding.TargetUpdated">
<BeginStoryboard>
<Storyboard>
<DoubleAnimation Storyboard.TargetProperty="Opacity" Duration="0:0:1" From="1.0" To="0.0" />
<DoubleAnimation Storyboard.TargetProperty="Opacity" Duration="0:0:1" From="0.0" To="1.0" />
</Storyboard>
</BeginStoryboard>
</EventTrigger>
</TextBlock.Triggers>
</TextBlock>
</StackPanel>

Windows Phone 8 - Creating a "Fade-in and slide-in" animation

I've seen posts on here on how to create an Image slide-in effect, I am however currently trying to animate a TextBlock in a Windows Phone 8 project to "Slide-in and fade-in" both at the same time, just to give my app that "snazzy" feel. My current code targets the StoryBoard.Target Property for Opacity and that works, I'm just confused on how to animate both the opacity and I'm guessing for the "slide-in" effect it would be the "X" property of the TextBlock, both at the same time. The code I have currently for Opacity is as follows:
<phone:PhoneApplicationPage.Resources>
<Storyboard x:Name="StoryBoard1">
<DoubleAnimation Storyboard.TargetName="Txt2"
Storyboard.TargetProperty="Opacity"
From="0" To="1" Duration="0:0:1"
Completed="DoubleAnimation_Completed_1"/>
</Storyboard>
Nice and simple, now how would I combine this with a "Slide-in" movement animation, could anyone guide me as to what changes I would need to make to the code to achieve the desired effect as stated previously? Any written out samples would be a big bonus.
Thanks in advance.

It can be tricky to animate a "slide-in", depending on the layout -- the problem is that you really need to animate X from "width of container", which can be harder than it sounds. But often it's good-enough just to hard-code a value.
So, if you have a Canvas, then you can simply animate Canvas.X. Otherwise, you'll have to add a TranslateTransform to the target element, and animate its X property.
<Grid>
<TextBlock x:Name="Txt2" Text="foo">
<TextBlock.RenderTransform>
<TranslateTransform x:Name="translateTransform" X="500" />
</TextBlock.RenderTransform>
</TextBlock>
</Grid>
Then add the second animation to the Storyboard:
<Storyboard x:Name="StoryBoard1">
<DoubleAnimation Storyboard.TargetName="Txt2"
Storyboard.TargetProperty="Opacity"
From="0" To="1" Duration="0:0:1"
Completed="DoubleAnimation_Completed_1"/>
<DoubleAnimation Storyboard.TargetName="translateTransform"
Storyboard.TargetProperty="X"
From="500" To="0" Duration="0:0:1"/>
</Storyboard>

Problems hiding WPF StackPanel (not expander)

I have a real trouble with WPF StackPanel - I need to make it animated not only for scrolling its content horizontaly (this is ok more or less), but also I must make it expand/collapse (animated) by pressing some button on the containing window.
I have tried a lot of animated expander controls (for example http://www.codeproject.com/KB/WPF/AnimatingExpander.aspx) but they have overloaded with functionality (and some artifacts with contained controls) and not suitable for my task.
So the question is how to make SIMPLE horizontal oriented StackPanel to expand/collapse with animation by button click?

The simplest approach is to start an animation on a ToggleButton.Checked or .Unchecked event:
<StackPanel x:Name="MyStackPanel">...</StackPanel>
...
<ToggleButton Content="Click Me">
<ToggleButton.Triggers>
<EventTrigger RoutedEvent="ToggleButton.Checked">
<BeginStoryboard>
<Storyboard>
<DoubleAnimation Storyboard.TargetName="MyStackPanel"
Storyboard.TargetProperty="Width"
To="0"
Duration="0:0:0.5" />
</Storyboard>
</BeginStoryboard>
</EventTrigger>
<EventTrigger RoutedEvent="ToggleButton.Unchecked">
<BeginStoryboard>
<Storyboard>
<DoubleAnimation Storyboard.TargetName="MyStackPanel"
Storyboard.TargetProperty="Width"
To="200"
Duration="0:0:0.5" />
</Storyboard>
</BeginStoryboard>
</EventTrigger>
</ToggleButton.Triggers>
</ToggleButton>

Why not adding a storyboard and double animation for stackpanel's width. By clicking the button you can start the animation in code or by defining event triggers.